th
their children growing up in hopeless squalor. Very few savages
lead such lives, while few people are so oppressed and harassed
by the pains and penalties of civilization. For they are
chin-deep in debt. I saw promissory notes five and six times
renewed, with the landlord, away on the Continent, threatening
eviction. The selfishness of the landlords is too revolting.
They live in England or on the Continent, and confine their
duties in life to giving receipts for their rent. Imagine the
whole product of the land, in a country destitute of
manufactures and commerce, remitted to England, and the utmost
farthing of rent exacted from these wretches, no matter what
the season is, a valuation of fifty shillings, for example,
paying a rent of seven pounds--three hundred per cent.! Some
great catastrophe is imminent. Not a gun is left in the
gunsmiths' shops in Dublin, and I am told that shiploads are
brought in from America weekly. The people are perfectly right
in resisting eviction, but Parliament ought to interpose. We
must get rid of the landlords, and we must establish compulsory
education. Then the priests will go like smoke before the wind.
Free trade is another cause of the troubles. That is one of the
most specious humbugs extant, and has ruined the Irish farmers.
It may be all right in principle, but now and here it is simply
mischievous. Professor ----, who is a member of the new Land
Commission, went round with me in Connemara, and implored me to
write up the state of the district; but before anything can be
published and reach the English ear the autumn rent-day will
have come, and the gale will be at its height."

HIGH JINKS ON THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI.

_To the Editor of Lippincott's Magazine:_

It is a remarkable historical fact that the latest visitor to the Upper
Mississippi has always felt it his duty to assail the good faith of
every previous traveller. Beltrami (1823) attacked Pike (1806);
Schoolcraft (1832) fleshed his pen in Beltrami; Allen, who accompanied
Schoolcraft, afterward became his enemy and branded him as a
geographical quack; Nicollet (1836) arraigned both Schoolcraft and Allen
for incompetency; and so on. And now, at this late day, in a mild way
tradition repeats itself. Your great original geographer, Mr. Siegfried,
concluded his two essays on the "High